Latest / 10 Minute Murder | Bingeable True Crime Stories / Florida Man Eats A Person
Transcript
- 0:39On August fifteenth, twenty sixteen, a man in Florida was just about to
- 0:43head to bed when he heard a terrible scream from across the street. Jeff
- 0:48Fisher then stopped in his tracks. He knew that the couple across the streets,
- 0:53Joseph and Michelle Stevens, often watched TV in their garage in the evenings
- 0:58to try to escape to Florida, and that they would usually leave the garage
- 1:02door open while they did that. Everyone in their neighborhood knew it too.
- 1:06Joseph and Michelle were well liked and often invited neighbors to come and sit with
- 1:11them, or just waved hello as they were passing by the garage door.
- 1:15But Jeff had never heard anyone scream like that, and maybe most importantly for
- 1:19this case, he had never heard Michelle scream like that before either. He
- 1:25immediately knew that something was wrong, and, wanting to be a good neighbor,
- 1:29Jeff headed across the street to see if he could help. There he
- 1:33found Michelle lying on the floor in a pool of blood. It looked like
- 1:37she had been attacked and brutally killed in her own home. Jeff was shocked
- 1:42and desperately tried to help Michelle, but quickly found himself a victim of an
- 1:47attack. A young man pounced on Jeff and in his hand was a knife.
- 1:53Jeff was then left in the impossible situation of trying to help Michelle while
- 1:57also defending himself, and ended up running through Michelle and Joseph's house to get
- 2:02away from the attacker. He could hear the young man close behind him as
- 2:07he first ran through the house and then around it to get back to the
- 2:12safety of his own Before he was able to take stock of the situation,
- 2:15Jeff then called the police, and it was only while he was on the
- 2:20phone with the dispatchers that Jeff realized that he had been stabbed himself multiple times
- 2:25as well. The situation was grim, but somehow it managed to get even
- 2:30grimmer. By the time the first responders made it to the scene. Michelle
- 2:36was still lying silent and motionless where Jeff had last seen her, but now
- 2:39her husband Joseph was with her too. It looked like he had also been
- 2:44stabbed. But most shocking of all, the young man who had attacked them
- 2:49was wrapped around Joseph, tearing chunks of Joseph's face and chest away with his
- 2:53teeth. Joseph cried out as the young man bit into him, meaning that
- 2:59despite the chaos and carnage unfolding in front of them, there was still a
- 3:02chance for first responders to save him. The police officer on the scene tried
- 3:07to pride the young man off of Joseph, but the attacker was strong,
- 3:13far too strong for one policeman to handle alone. The officer called for backup
- 3:16and pulled his service weapon, only for the attacker to ignore him and continue
- 3:22biting Joseph. The officer threatened to shoot, but he couldn't actually risk catching
- 3:27Joseph and the crossfire, so he had to wait for backup. More police
- 3:31officers arrived and tried to wrestle the young man away. They tased him several
- 3:36times and deployed a canine unit, but every time they managed to get Joseph
- 3:40free, the young man would break away and get right back to it.
- 3:46He snarled and growled like an animal and ignored the canine, biting his own
- 3:50arm. Eventually, it took four officers to get the scene under control,
- 3:55and by then both Michelle and Joseph had unfortunately passed, leaving their neighbor Jeff
- 4:01to be the only surviving victim that day. The Florida streets were stunned into
- 4:06silence after this brutal and gruesome attack, an attack that at first glance seemed
- 4:13to be the horrible result of drug taking gone terribly wrong. But the tests
- 4:17on the young man all came back negative, excluding small trace amounts of marijuana,
- 4:23and once the investigators were able to track down the identity of this maniac
- 4:27killer, the case only grew more tragic. Austin Harriff was born in December
- 4:34nineteen ninety six and was now a nineteen year old boy studying at Florida State
- 4:39University. Growing up, he wrestled, played football, and now that he
- 4:44was in college, he was in the Alpha Delta Phi fraternity. He worked
- 4:47out and wanted to be a bodybuilder, and always seemed to be trying to
- 4:51better himself, but maybe he had his reasons for wanting to do so.
- 4:57After talking with Austin's parents, instigators were able to catch a glimpse of what
- 5:01was going on with Austin below the surface. As a teenager, he had
- 5:05often suffered from bouts of depression, and now that he was a young adult,
- 5:11the situation only seemed to be getting worse now. Austin suffered from massive
- 5:15mood swings. He would get depressed and withdrawn, only to suddenly burst into
- 5:20a rapid bout of energy, during which he claimed to see and hear things
- 5:26that others did not. During the weeks leading up to the attack, Austin
- 5:30told others that he had started to feel like he was Jesus and would later
- 5:34be worshiped. He claimed that he had superpowers and he was invincible, and
- 5:40to prove it, he started walking into the streets to show people that passing
- 5:44cars wouldn't hit him. At home, he felt like he was in danger.
- 5:49He kept the family dog with him at night for protection, and then
- 5:54began patrolling the halls, banging on bedroom doors to tell the people inside that
- 5:59he was there and he would keep protecting them all the way through the night.
- 6:02He told family and friends that he was seeing evil figures all dressed in
- 6:08black with white faces, and yet most of the people around him believed that
- 6:12Austin was simply going through something and would eventually come out the other side.
- 6:17Austin was left alone to do his own research on his situation, most of
- 6:21which was done on his phone and computer and involved searches like must I sleep,
- 6:29I think I'm going crazy? Am I? And what am I?
- 6:33The day before the attack, Wade Harroff took his son to a gun show
- 6:39where he bought Austin a switchblade let me say that again. The day before
- 6:45the attack, after suffering all of these mental problems leading up to it,
- 6:49Wade Harraf took his son to a gun show where he bought Austin a switchblade
- 6:55knife. The next day, Austin and Wade got into a fight when Austin
- 7:00wanted to leave the house in the car. Wade refused to give Austin the
- 7:03keys until he'd taken a xanax, and in protest, Austin climbed on top
- 7:09of Wade's car and jumped up and down on the roof until Wade gave him
- 7:13the keys. Austin then disappeared for a while and met up with his friends.
- 7:17He then met up with his father, his father's girlfriend, and Austin's
- 7:21sister at a local restaurant. Austin appeared to be agitated as soon as he
- 7:27arrived. He stayed for a while, argued with his family, and then
- 7:30left the restaurant without saying where he was going. He went to his mother's
- 7:34house, which was about two miles away. He said that he was thirsty,
- 7:40and then drank a whole bottle of cooking oil before disappearing again. He
- 7:45went back to dinner, argued with his family again, and then left again.
- 7:50It was shortly after that that he began stalking the streets. He claimed
- 7:55to have seen a dark figure following him and talking to him, a dark
- 7:59fig figure he called Daniel. He also saw a witch screaming at him from
- 8:03one of the houses he was passing by, and after that the rest kind
- 8:09of went blank. It was during this blackout that Austin attacked Michelle. He
- 8:13stabbed her with his new switchblade, before finding other objects around the garage that
- 8:18he could also use as a weapon to attack her. He then chased and
- 8:22stabbed the neighbor Jeff when he came by, and it was believed that Joseph
- 8:26had been out walking the dog, only to come home to find Austin attacking
- 8:31Michelle. It was then that Austin moved on to Joseph and did what he
- 8:35did. When first responders managed to get Austin to the hospital, they found
- 8:41that he had extensive internal injuries from drinking what they believed to be bleach,
- 8:46and they were unsure whether he was even going to survive, let alone go
- 8:50to trial, but he did. Both psychiatric evaluators from both the prosecution and
- 8:56the defense found that Austin had not been sane at the time of the attacks.
- 9:01He was later diagnosed as bipolar with psychotic features. He was acquitted by
- 9:07reasons of insanity, but has been involuntarily admitted to a psychiatric hospital. Joseph
- 9:13and Michelle's families say that they are deeply hurt by the court's findings and believed
- 9:18that Austin should have been punished to the full extent of the law. In
- 9:22later interviews, Austin cries and shows remorse for his actions. He claims to
- 9:26have no idea what happened during the attacks and that coming back to reality was
- 9:31like walking into a nightmare. He told both his sister and friends that day
- 9:37he believed he was a centaur and that he was a half dog. That's
- 9:54ten minute Murder for today, brief and bingeable true crime. I'm Joe,
- 10:01I'm the host, and thank you so much for taking the time to listen
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